Shaun White won a World Cup in halfpipe last year but doesn't have a start in slopesyle, which is making its Olympic debut in Sochi. / Mike Groll, AP

by Rachel Axon, USATODAY

by Rachel Axon, USATODAY

ASPEN, Colo. â?? For more than a year, the question that loomed largest in determining how well Shaun White could contend for double Olympic gold was whether he had a triple cork in slopestyle.

Turns out, White spent months trying to land a triple cork â?? an off-axis flip three times around â?? in the halfpipe.

His battle with the dangerous trick â?? which is now a must-have in slopestyle but has never been done before in the pipe â?? lies at the center of "Shaun White: Russia Calling", a film chronicling White's journey to the Olympics.

The most dominant halfpipe rider with the past two Olympic gold medals, White is the only snowboarder competing in that event and slopestyle, which requires riders to perform tricks on rails, boxes and jumps and makes its Olympic debut next month.

The documentary, which airs on NBC tonight at 8 p.m. on each coast and 7 p.m. CST and MST, follows White starting with the 2013 X Games through U.S. team qualifying. While it includes his summer touring with his band, Bad Things, his charity work and a look at his media obligations, it's White's journey to learn progressive tricks in the halfpipe that is most compelling.

For an Olympic audience accustomed to seeing White land high-flying tricks with almost robotic-like precision, the film is a brutally honest look at just how difficult staying atop the sport is.

Several shudder-inducing crashes are included as viewers get to see the physical demands that often lead the 27-year-old to ice baths or dips in a frigid lake. But more than the toll on his body, it's the toll on White's mind that is captured and lingers after the film is over.

As his quest to master the triple cork in the halfpipe proves more fitful, White says, "It's like I have beef with this trick."

While he steps away from the triple cork, it's the success of a rival that pushes him to progress. Swiss snowboarder Iouri Podlatchikov landed a switch frontside 1440, which he dubbed the "YOLO flip," at the X Games in Tignes, France, last year.

White matches I Pod, landing the frontside double cork 1440 while training in Australia this summer â?? something he'd already released in a GoPro video in November.

White told the Associated Press this week, "If you saw me pop up at the Olympics and do a couple double 14s, win medals and say, 'That's really cool,' you wouldn't know the whole thing. You wouldn't know I tried all this other stuff. It's so much more than just me showing up and saying, 'It worked out or it didn't work out.'"

While the film details his mental struggles and fears about the triple cork, his ability to learn a new double cork and overcome injury to make the U.S. team in both events leaves the viewer thinking that not only is double gold possible but knowing White did the work to get there.

As he says early in the film, "I'm still in the hunt for things that I want."